More Illegal than Legal Immigrants

More Illegal than Legal Immigrants

There are now more illegal than legal immigrants coming into the United States.

The Pew Hispanic Center reports the combined number of legal and illegal immigrants peaked at about 1.5 million in 2000 and dropped to 1.1 million in 2003, rebounding slightly since then.

Illegal has topped legal immigration in four of the last ten years.

Texas republican Senator John Cornyn says the figures show the immigration system is broken.

No kidding!

Cronyn is the author of a guest-worker bill that would allow illegals up to five years to return home and would create a visa program to allow foreign workers to fill jobs temporarily if there are no U.S. workers available.

This would balance the need of Americans for cheap labor and also better protect us from people who have no legal right to be here forever.

It also might better protect us from terrorists who are slipping across our border with the intent of doing us harm.

My question is: when are more politicians going to wake-up to the problem?

Only after another terrorist attack?

I hope not.

I'm Cal Thomas in Washington.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.